the night before
by awintea
Summary: secretsanta // christmas eve is supposed to be full of gaiety, of cheer, of preparation for the day of. however, for one man, the night before is the main event // oneshot. dedicated to ezyl - happy holidays!


_**Fic written for the Pointless but Original Talking Forum Secret Santa Fic Exchange.**_  
**Request Number:** 02  
**Pairing/Groups:** If there's a Shiraishicentric with some Oshitari Kenya or Fuji, I'd be ever grateful. IMPERIAL (TezuAto), Tango, Perfect, Pillar, or Royal. Anything involving Ann is okay, too.  
**Squicks/Turn Offs in Fic:** Emerald and Golden. And if Ryuzaki Sumire is involved, I'll sue.  
**Interests in Fic:** Angst and hawt stuff.  
**Gen/Het/Slash/Smut/None/All-of-the-above?:** ALL OF 'EM.  
**Request: **Something Royal. And charrie death. Maybe even Imperial, if anyone is up to it.  
**A/N//Message to receiver:**

Well, happy holidays and such! I do hope this is adequate, but I don't really think it is. Either way, here is your Secret Santa gift, ezyl, and please enjoy. (No, really, please do.) It's one thousand words exactly. I'm sorry it's cheesy and lame. XD

*******

**the night before**

The night before is supposed to be full of gaiety, of cheer and happiness and joy and such, with anticipation for the actual day. There should be much preparation - the day of requires much preparation, of course, with last-minute decorations to be put up and festivities to be planned and gifts to be bought and cards to be made.

The night before, however, is, for one young man, the main event.

He brushes his hand across his forehead, pushing a few stray brown locks out of his eyes, so his gaze is not blocked by them. He is sitting on a snow-covered bench - it is rather cold; and snow is still falling, but his skin feels nothing but an odd numbness. A familiar feeling for him that he associates with this place.

He does not come often - just once every year, always on this day. He could reserve the whole section if he wished so he could have some privacy, but he does not feel this necessary. He does not think that the person he is visiting would appreciate his wasting money on him, even if he himself does not believe it a waste.

There is nobody else here anyway. The grounds are almost always deserted when he visits; nobody wants to be at a cemetery on Christmas Eve.

Nobody except him, at least, and those who have no choice but to be in a graveyard.

There are fairy lights strung up in the barren trees, petite multi-coloured leaves that decorate the otherwise naked branches. He does not see these at all; his gaze locked on the tombstone in front of him.

'I miss you.' His voice is soft, not at all what people would expect from him. But the young man in front of him had always demanded the unexpected, from himself and from others.

'Why aren't you here?' Now his voice is softer, more a whisper of quiet despondency than actual speech. 'It's Christmas Eve. You were supposed to spend this with me. You'd _promised_.'

He knows he sounds childish, but he cannot help it. It is not as if there is anybody else here to hear him - he does not even know if his words are being heard by anybody except himself, even though he wishes so desperately that somewhere, _he_ is listening.

'You make me sound like an idiot, even after you've died,' he acknowledges with a pained laugh. 'I bet you're happy. Somewhere, I bet you're smirking at me and thinking that it's great that I've been reduced to something like this; that I'm not as high and mighty as I seemed before.' That is what he would like to think: that somewhere, he is still listening to his words. That someday, they will be reunited. That somehow, his life will be taken out of the intermission it is in and it will start again.

'Not,' he appends, 'that you ever thought I was high and mighty.' The breeze is blowing the snowflakes around, a winter wonderland with the snowflakes dancing together.

He has nobody to dance with any more - nobody he would want to dance with, anyway.

'The world has gone on without you,' he informs, whilst wondering whether this knowledge is of any benefit to him at all. 'Your old captain's playing professionally - Fuji forced him to get therapy for his arm first though. They're together now.'

His throat feels suddenly tight, and there is a strange wetness to his eyes that always comes upon him whenever he visits - it is inevitable. 'I'm sorry. If I had known - if Tezuka - if...' His voice trails off. He has never been able to express a proper apology, and it seems this year, it will elude him again.

There is always next year.

'They're having a Christmas party tomorrow,' he says, not saying who 'they' are - the old regulars have had a Christmas party every year. 'I might go. They're holding it at my favourite restaurant - the roast beef there is wonderful.'

The unsaid explanation is that the ex-regulars are holding it there with hope that he will go because of it.

'I brought you there once, remember? That time I wanted to show you what _real_ food was like. I might go to the party this year - everyone else is coming, even Mukahi. He's flying in from Europe.'

He has never gone to one of the Christmas parties. Not since the incident.

'They've all gone on with their lives. All of them. Even Shishido and Ohtori - the two had been so...well, you know, before but they've drifted apart, Shishido with that weird silver-haired guy from Rikkai - they got together this year, and it was such a shock - and Ohtori with this woman he met at work.'

He does not ask why he himself is not able to move on, to let go.

He coughs - the cold is getting to him, even if he does not feel it. He is not as young as he used to be; he cannot go about outside in clothes that are not fitting for the weather, and the thin designer dress shirt and dress pants he is wearing are definitely not weather-appropriate.

It is almost midnight, so says his expensive diamond-coated watch. There is but a minute left - he had not realised that he had spent so much time here already. He should be returning home - returning to an empty shell of a home with no love and no warmth except for the few strands of affectionate emotion left over from so long again.

He says the same things before he leaves that he has every year, the clock hitting twelve partway through his sentence, as it always has. He says the words without feeling - not wrought with depression or sated with devotion. He says them as fact. As they are.

And he leaves. The cemetery is empty once more, with no sound but the wind and the echo of his words.

'Happy Birthday, Echizen Ryoma, and Merry Christmas.'

*******

**Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night. **~awinchan


End file.
